Neil Mulligan

An Tobar Glé

Spring Records SCD 1049; 53 minutes; 2003

Neil Mulligan is a large man physically but cradles the uilleann
pipes as though nestling a newborn baby in his arms. That delicacy pervaded his
playing throughout his previous two albums (1991’s Barr na Cúille and
1997’s The Leitrim Thrush) and continues on An Tobar Glé (“The
Clear/Bright Well”). The album takes its title from the name of a traditional
music club run by Séamus Ennis in Dublin during the 1970s, where the young Neil
(or “Neillidh” as Ennis nicknamed him, in honour of the Donegal fiddler
Neillidh Boyle) and his father Tom, a notable fiddler, were among the resident
musicians.

Though born and raised in Dublin, Neil’s music has always
been inspired by the music of his father’s native County Leitrim, indeed he
reckons that Tom (who died in 1984) was the source for many of his tunes.
However, others on An Tobar Glé derive from musicians as varied as
Willie Clancy, the Roscommon flute-player Peg McGrath, the Dublin piper Tommy
Reck and, of course, Ennis himself, while Neil’s enduring affection for the
sean-nós song tradition is encapsulated by his rendition of the slow air Táimse
im’ Chodlach which he associates with Seán ‘ac Dhonncha.

The best of the airs on the album, however, is a tellingly
understated rendition of A Stór Mo Chroí while, contrastingly, the reel The
Morning Thrush demonstrates all Neil’s dexterity and mastery of the subtle
use of the pipes’ regulators. All tunes, it should be noted, are played without
any form of accompaniment.

Like its predecessor, An Tobar Glé ends with some
archive recordings of Tom Mulligan, recorded a couple of years before his
death. This time father and son duet on two sets of reels and, although the
tape quality is obviously far from ideal, both tracks demonstrate the perfect
congruence of their playing.

Finally, replete with informative notes on the tunes and
plenty of archive photographs, the album’s beautifully designed liner should
serve as a model for other small independent labels.